The present invention relates to a device for monitoring overloading of products from a working machine to a transporting vehicle, in particular overloading by an agricultural harvester, wherein the working machine is provided with an overloading device and an analog monitoring camera is associated with the overloading device, films the overloading process, and indicates the results with an analog control monitor arranged in the driver's cabin of the working machine.
Such a device is disclosed for example in the German patent document DE 44 26 059 for a self-propelling forage harvester. It makes possible for the driver to provide a continuous control of the filling of a trailer pulled by a tractor, with a chopped product, with the use of a monitor arranged in the driver's cabin. The monitor is arranged in the field of observation of the driver so that it can observe a field located in front of its machine without turning his head. However, a separate video monitor must be installed to indicate the image transmitted from the video camera. The additional indicating monitor causes however additional costs, limits the movement freedom in the cabin, and influences the vision outside. The driver of the forage harvester can influence the loading of the accompanying trailer by change of its traveling speed and/or by an adjustment of the upper discharge chute or the upper discharge flap. With the actual capacity of the trailer, its obtained loading, and the total weight of the transportation vehicle resulting from the filling, the driver of the harvester can not however make an accurate judgment, since he does not know its carrying capacity, especially during harvesting with the use of several transportation vehicles. The personal responsibility for the loading condition of the transporting vehicle, in particular when it is used on open streets and roads on its travel to silo, lies on the driver of the transporting vehicle. This is however difficult to provide that the transporting vehicle is also uniformly distributed and loaded only to the upper limit of the permissible total weight. For this purpose, the driver must look rearwardly very often so that after long time of use he is overwhelmed, since the driver must also carefully monitor that the vehicle driven by him does not collide with the harvester.
German patent document DE 1 555 360 discloses an agricultural pulling machine or a construction vehicle, in which the driver of a pulling machine can monitor working devices as to their functions by a video device. In the drawings of this patent also a control monitor is shown, which is mounted additionally in the cabin. The control of overloading processes is not disclosed in this document.
German patent document DD 15 157 describes a positioning device between harvesters and transporting vehicles. In order to avoid collisions and overloading losses, it is proposed to determine and indicate both the relative position of the vehicle relative to one another and also to control the transfer element. The described positioning device is however very expensive, since it includes a plurality of individual components.
Generally speaking, all devices disclosed in the prior art have the disadvantage that they operate with obsolete analog technique which is slow, expensive and complicated to install and which also is no longer adaptable to the board electrical system of working machines and transporting vehicles operating with digital technology.